The increasing demand for high-speed voice and data communications has led to an increased reliance on optical communications, particularly optical fiber communications. The use of optical signals as a vehicle to carry channeled information at high speeds is preferred in many instances to carrying channeled information at other electromagnetic wavelengths/frequencies in media such as microwave transmission lines, co-axial cable lines and twisted pair transmission lines. Advantages of optical media are, among others, high-channel capacity (bandwidth), greater immunity to electromagnetic interference, and lower propagation loss. In fact, it is common for high-speed optical communication systems to have signal rates in the range of approximately several Giga bits per second (Gbit/sec) to approximately several tens of Gbit/sec.
One way of carrying information in an optical communication system, for example an optical network, is via an array of optical fibers. Ultimately, the optical fiber array may be coupled to another array of waveguides, such as another optical fiber array, or a waveguide array of an optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC). In order to assure the accuracy of the coupling of the fiber array to another waveguide array, it becomes important to accurately position each optical fiber in the array.
Optical switches serve a variety of applications in optical communication systems. Once such variety of optical switches are mechanical switches. Mechanical optical switches have been used in a variety of optical fiber routing applications to switch between particular optical signal pads to provide reliable optical transmission routes for carrying optical signals.
Many mechanical optical switch configurations which are commercially available are typically characterized as either optical-component-moving-type or fiber-moving-type switch configurations. Illustratively, optical-component-moving-type switches include configurations that employ movable optical element (e.g. mirrors or prisms) to selectively redirect signals from an end of a first optical fiber to an end from a second optical fiber wherein the optical fibers are arranged in a parallel manner with their ends adjacent one another. While beneficial optical-component-moving-type switches typically elaborate and often too expensive for large scale implementation.
Conventional fiber-moving-type switch configurations may provide multiple-port switching. However, these types of optical switches suffer from complexity, expense and chronically poor alignment which requires frequent and labor intensive adjustment. The relative complexity of conventional fiber-moving-type switches has resulted in prohibitive cost and relatively high alignment tolerances which ultimately impair the performance of the device.
Accordingly, what is needed is a relatively simple, inexpensive, mechanically stable optical switch configuration capable of providing multiple-port switching in a variety of optical applications.